


Sense Memory

by halfpenny



Category: Bourne (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-21
Updated: 2008-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpenny/pseuds/halfpenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just how did Bourne spot Nicky so quickly in the crowd in "Ultimatum"?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense Memory

  
  


Nicky Parsons hates French food. It reminds her of her overbearing aunt and uncle from Charleston, who clung to unadulterated French cooking, the broiled meats and heavy, thick sauces, as a matter of principle even deep in the heart of she-crab soup and gumbo country. There’re precious few places in Paris that boast Southern American cuisine and Nicky is sorry, but Tex-Mex can’t compare with a plate of pork chop jambalaya. The chefs here can’t even pronounce ‘jambalaya,’ let alone prepare it.

She’s been in Paris for two full years before she stops craving sweet tea. She’s let her hair grow long, more neglect than fashion, and on whim, dyed it a purer blonde than her natural streaked dishwater affair. She’s getting pretty good at the accent.

She doesn’t recognize him while she’s making up the wanted posters. She made the mistake of looking at the man on the poster once before. She ended up vomiting savory crepes into the bushes outside the city morgue after ID’ing a body for Treadstone. One of their operatives. He took a knife to the eye. She doesn’t look at the faces anymore.

Nicky starts to get nervous when Jason Bourne’s name gets mentioned more than twice. Anyone who gets a repeat on the scanner means paperwork for Nicky. And nightmares. It’s not until her boss Conklin actually shows up in Paris to help her clean the safehouse, shredding files twice as fast as her in a tense silence, that Nicky gets scared.

Then the lights go out. And the phones go dead. And Nicky Parson’s dead fiancée Captain David Webb, whose body’s been missing for three years, appears from the darkness with a drawn gun.

And walks right past her.

* * *

Later, Jason wondered at how quickly he spotted Nicky during the chase in Tangiers. The afternoon market was crawling with Anglo tourists and strollers, and yet he picked her out in less than a second. Her walk, the slope of her shoulders, the swish of her hair as she slipped through the crush of shoppers. He found her, and for an instant the press of the almost-familiar threatened to overwhelm him. But Desh moved just as quickly as Bourne and Jason vaulted out a window and didn’t think about it again for weeks. Or why the wrought-iron details on the staircases and front gates make him think of slow, green summer heat, of the American South, and of sex.

After the rooftop operative and the freezing river, Jason hauled himself to a disgusting room for rent above a diner called ‘Marty’s.’ The room is heavy with the thick, filmy scent of lard and frying meats. Even after he disinfects his wounds with cheap Vodka from the corner store, Jason is almost afraid to lie back on the dingy sheets for fear of feeling the slick of grease against his bandages. The proprietor’s a nice guy, takes Jason’s cash and doesn’t ask questions. He owns the restaurant downstairs, too, and sends a shy-looking Ukrainian waitress up with a bowl of hot, buttery grits to warm Jason up. The first and second spoonfuls are completely normal, but on the third bite Jason remembers how much Nicky preferred a little less butter on her grits, and memory slams into him like the sky falling.

* * *

Nicky meets David Webb at a department Christmas party six years ago. He’s just Corporal Webb at the time, trying to earn an extra buck working the security detail for some UN bigwig. It’s Nicky’s first State Department party and she’s horribly underdressed. She went swimming earlier in the day and showed up late, her wet hair reeking of chlorine, wearing navy slacks in a roomful of cocktail dresses. She spends most of the reception trying to discreetly get water out of her ears instead of mingling like a good intern.

Then this handsome guy in a black suit comes up to her while she’s fiddling with her ear and nods knowingly. "You too?" he asks and plows on before she can contradict him. "I know, these earpiece suck. I’m David and I’m here with the Chilean ambassador. Who’re you with?" Once he gets over his embarrassment, he’s actually quite charming and they hit it off.

After six weeks of dating, David asks her to do something special for him. Nicky's first thought is _Oh God, he’s some kind of kinky freak_ , but all he asks if for her to help him run a training exercise. "I’m crap at sighting targets in urban settings," he says and flashes that big sheepish smile that melts Nicky’s knees a little bit. Okay, a lot a bit.

"So all I have to do is…?"

"Just walk around New York. Enjoy the sights."

Nicky peers over her coffee cup. "And you?"

David nods, suddenly all business. "I’ll be following. You won’t see me, but my goal is to keep you in sight at all times."

Nicky doesn’t really think too hard about it. They’ve set aside a half hour for the exercise and Nicky starts off on Wall Street just to be difficult. She figures she’s just being a good sport about it, military boyfriend and all, but as she walks something happens.

She can feel him watching her. It starts as just a tickle between her shoulder blades, a slight, unreachable itch, more of an irritation than anything else. Then the tickle spreads across her back and down her spine, and somehow turns into a pleasant sort of warmth. He is watching her. She crosses busy streets and dodges strolling pedestrians, all with the feeling of his eyes on her. Nicky doesn’t think of herself as one for voyeurism, but knowing that David is watching every move did something to her. When she returns to his apartment half an hour later, she all but drags him to bed before he could so much as open his mouth to thank her. He does not have to ask her to do it again.

It becomes something of a regular thing. He’ll be sitting on the couch and she’ll be doing the crossword, and he’ll stand and grab his keys, toss them to her, and pull on his jacket without looking at him. "Five minute head start," he’ll say and Nicky will feel her face heat up. "Headed east," she’ll say and her stomach will drop when his face hardens into military mode. She gets more daring, darting down narrow alleyways and hiding behind lampposts to throw him off. Once, she stops on a side street right out in the open and very carefully, unsnaps the top two buttons of her blouse. This time it’s David who jumps her before her coat is even off.

Theoretically, it’s all just training for his big entrance exam to some program. Treadrock or something, David’s been kind of vague about it. On the day of his first field test, he has his coffee at Nicky’s place, kisses her, and says he’ll call when it’s all over. Three weeks later, the US Government officially pronounces David Webb missing in action.

Nicky calls everyone she can think of, but no one knows what happened. There’s a fake memorial service with a fake casket with no body in it, and Nicky doesn’t go. She starts scanning the interoffice classified, looking to get out of New York. Paris in the springtime sounds amazing.

The next time she sees David, she’s tearing down a safe house, and he’s pointing a gun at her boss and answering to Jason Bourne. She curls up under the desk as she listens to the shooting start outside in the hall. Emergency services arrive late, of course, and she’s debriefed and made to sign countless gag orders and transferred to Berlin. She’s fine for a few months, then he grabs her off a busy city street and it all begins again.

* * *

The return of his memory is immediate and painful, years of faces, stories, and actions rushing back like some relentless wave advancing across his mind. His childhood in Boston, his parents, his sister’s death in a car accident at nineteen, his failed attempt at college and the relief of dropping out to enlist. He remembers his company, every last one of their names. He remembers all the men he’s killed, all their faces. But mostly, he remembers Nicky. Meeting her at that awful party, moving into her cramped loft apartment, the late nights he spent pouring over jewelry sites on the Internet in search of the perfect ring. He remembers every time she kissed him, each laugh and sigh as if he was hearing them now.

He remembers watching her.

He must pass out at some point because when he comes to sprawled out on the cheap, worn carpet with grits splattered everywhere, he’s David Webb again. He can still feel Bourne lodged somewhere in his brain, but David Allen Webb remembered his name.

And there was only one thing left to do.

* * *

Nicky chooses the touristy island as a refugee based purely on the weather. The food’s alright, a little salty for her taste, but the sun and the surf make up for that nicely. She blends easily into the transient, student-based beach culture and finds she doesn’t really mind the dark hair. She even re-dyes it when her roots start to show. She thinks it looks exotic.

She doesn’t bother to learn the language and sticks to English mostly, as she was never good at any language but French, but manages to find a job waiting tables at a Parisian ex-pat bar. She develops a nice little schedule. Breakfast at a café near the shore, work until 2, hit the market for groceries, dinner for one, sometimes a swim if the weather’s warm enough, then bed. It’s a nice routine and Nicky lets the rush of fugitive life settle into an easy vacation rhythm. She thinks about Dav- Jaso- _him_ often, though not as much as you’d imagine. Often enough to keep her dream life interesting. Nicky told herself that made up for her lack of dates. Occasionally, she buys it.

Then one day, as Nicky leaves the bar and turns down a white-washed back street toward the open-air market, she feels it. At first, she thinks she’s imagining it, but there it is, the tell-tale prickle of heat on her back. She stops cold in the middle of the road, actually trembling with hope. She has no idea what to do. She’s dreamed of this enough to wonder if it’s really happening, but she certainly never imagined a voice come from one of the cramped rooftops saying, "The half hour starts now."

Nicky’s joy is so sharp and sudden, it verges on hurt. "Headed southeast," she calls out and strolls down the alley and into the sunlit market as the tickle swells to heat, spreading out from her heart.

* * *

David watches her turn the corner and merge into the afternoon crowd surging through the marketplace and adjusted his course across the rooftops to follow Nicky's route. Yes, he thinks as he watches the swish of Nicky’s dark hair below him. He remembers this.

 


End file.
